MUSICIAN Irene Gledhill, nee Singleton, was well known in Huddersfield.

As these pictures show, the Golcar lass started out in Knowl Bank Council School choir, which had a measure of success in the 1920s, winning the school choir class of the Huddersfield-based Mrs Sunderland Musical Competition that year, and the same section in the Welsh National Eisteddfod in 1922.

Irene, a pupil of the famous Huddersfield teacher Arthur Willie Kaye, went on to play violin with the Huddersfield and Slaithwaite Philharmonic Orchestras, and became a peripatetic violin teacher in Huddersfield schools.

She was also the leader of Longwood Sing for a number of years.

She died in 1995 aged 87, but Dilys Lamb, her niece, kept the photographic records on this page and a gold medal the girls received for their Eisteddfod triumph.

“I believe the Golcar choir won the Eisteddfod twice, but I cannot verify that,” said Dilys.

“Irene always used to maintain that their choir had a higher score than the Manchester children’s choir which won a year or two later, who became very famous due to having had a recording made in 1929.”

The top picture, of Lockwood Home Guard in 1940, features Irene’s husband Norman (again ringed, front row).

Crosland Hill-born Dilys left Huddersfield in December, 1999 to live nearer relatives in Buckinghamshire.

Educated at Royds Hall, she had been a teacher at Rawthorpe Infant School for 25 years after spells with the WRN or ‘Wrens’ (Women’s Royal Navy) and as a PO telephonist.